Christmas Day

I ended up making a stew. I started out helping my mother make stew. I started helping because I was given a knife, an expensive knife, supposedly from Japan. It was a Christmas gift.

It's a very good knife. It is the kind of knife that makes you want to chop vegetables.

Once I found out that I was no longer helping but doing, I changed the recipe. That's the right of the cook. He how cooks gets to chose the ingredients.

More onions was the first change.

Christmas, open gifts, go onto the next day.

The youngest niece placd a clementine in front of me. I peeled it as I thought of someone else that has me peel thier clemtines.

Coffee

photos

Slow down

People are impatenient and stupid for the most part which usually makes me look like a genious because I will often take the time to think about a situation.

Coffee

So, I think I have finally found a way to make a very good cup of coffee at home. It is a big day.

Can not share

So, there are all sorts of fundraising activities going on where I work due to Can Share.

I am all for helping out my fellow man in need but I think Can Share is stupid. I am supposed to lug my cans of food to work so that someone else can lug them somewhere else. Other people think that this is stupid too so they raise money to buy food.

Sometimes, people hold bake sales to raise the money.

I think it is a lot to ask a stranger to trust the baking skills of another stranger in a non-professional setting but I guess folks do it.

I like to be a team player so I dropped by the table of baked goods. There were cookies, cakes, cupcakes, quick breads, store bought items and the like.

I asked for two cupcakes. I asked for two because the lowest bill I had in my pocket was a ten and nobody ever has the proper amount of change at these things so I tried to increase the total amount of my purchase.

The cupcake was red velvet in a foil cup liner. I peeled back the foil to find a paper cup liner. I sighed a little because I then doubted the baking skills of the person who baked the cupcakes because those paper cup liners are supposed to be removed before you fill the foil cup liners with cupcake mix. But those paper cup liners are actually that, paper cup liners so there is no harm in using them but they are redundant, it is like using two paper cup liners. One of the things that I like about the foil liners is that they often peel off easier and that gets ruined if you use a paper cup liner inside the foil cup liner.

I remove those paper liners and save them for another day when I don't want to use the foil liners.

If you google whether or not to remove the paper ones from inside the foil ones, you get a bunch of ignorant opinions. It seems to be quite a controversy.

But I just want to say, "Do not bake cakes for bake sales."Just do not do it. Nobody wants to buy a piece of cake at a bake sale. The cakes are always left. Haven't that been noticed yet.

I think bake sales are stupid, too. For the amount of effort and the cost of ingredients is often more than gets paid for your questionable baked items. How about I just hand you a twenty that you can toss into the till? That way I don't have to bake, you don't have to sell it and nobody has to throw it away at the end of the day.

Why don't you just hand my baked goods over to the homeless and cut out a bunch of middle men? I can bring in sandwiches.

The whole process is stupid.

I don't have much

These pictures are last first.

Pumpkin Pie

Gravy-ed

Not Gravy-ed

Steamy Mashed Potatoes

Biscuits Not Homemade

Turkey

Turkey

Pictures from a shopping trip to Whole Foods

What a crock.

After nine hours this is what the pork loin roast looked like. There is BBQ sauce and three diced onions in there as well.

It was steamy

I couldn't pull it out in one piece.

The start of the shredding process

More shredding

Shredded or fully pulled. I am good at pulling meat.

Back into the pot, which I should have not done because the BBQ sauce was way too sweet especially after reducing somewhat on the heat for nine hours.

Here!

I think she displayed a lot of emotion in her expression but I don't know what that emotion was.

Ferries to the Boston Harbor Islands will resume in May 2012

These ladies ruined the shot I had wanted to take

I wanted this shot but I wanted it at a different angle, probably with me standing closer to the fence.

Poor shot of two birds

I had read about this fire in the newspaper about a week prior to taking this photo. I think the cause was construction related.

There are more than just the homeless out there begging. In this shot I made certain to include his bird friend in the background because I am an awesome photographer. This was my third photo of these sparrows.

Shot two; a moderate improvement over the first shot.

Shot one; if you might lose the shot take it as quick as you can and then later try to get the best shot. Some might say that the table adds drama and color and perspective but I think it imposes itself to be the star of the photo.

Patio heaters, I've seen them before at open cafes. The first time I saw them was in San Antonio, it was in February and it was about 68 degrees at night, and folks were eating in the outside seating areas of some of the restaurants and they had these heaters going and they also had these Mexican blankets that people could drape over themselves due to the "cold." I was walking around in a short sleeve shirt wondering what the fuss was about because 68 degrees is rather nice for outside.

These heaters work pretty well.

Bathroom graffiti 

Another day

People in the office seem to be in a bit of a panic mode.

It like a victim of abuse is trying to do everything possible to provide no reason to be abuse again by a returning spouse. People are being too careful and worrying about things that will not happen.

(Although there is some verbal abuse sometimes, to be fair)

I have legitimate concerns today and these worrywarts are consuming all of my energy.

I am being worn down.

There is too much abuse in the world.

...

I sit and sip and watch.

I see Tony outside. He is watching too but the way he is watching is like he is trying to decide on what to do next. He served in World War II. I know him from the bar. The bar neither of us frequent too often anymore.

I know he will talk to me if he sees me. He isn't unpleasant to talk too but I look to my right as I see he walk through the door. He is in his own world at the moment and I am content to keep him there. He walks by me continuing on his way.

I watch him disappear into the crowd. He seems even smaller than the last time I saw him. He's about the size of a fifth grader and I slightly worry about his survival but he has made it this long without me worrying about him.

He showed me a picture once. I was him in his youth. He was standing in front of a war plane. It was from a different life or so it seemed.
...

Vote day

The days back to work haven't been as horrible as I had thought they would be which makes me worry that I am missing something.

I type this at an outside table overlooking Boston Harbor. It is the eighth of November and it is sixty six degrees out. People are out and about which means that I cannot look up porn. I think the dirty bits of the Internet are blocked at the moment anyway.

I think that there are too many people walking by my table so I move to another. Humans haunt me.

I look out over the harbor. I watch people go by. A gentleman approaches me. His is well dressed. He carries a stack of small newspapers. He stands close to me.
He shows the papers and states that these very papers help the homeless. The papers are copies of the Spare Change newspaper.

I tell him him that I am not interested.

He continues with something about it being difficult as the cold weather approaches.

I shake my head, no.

He doesn't want to give up on me but he spots easier prey, an older heavy set woman who most likely lives in the suburbs, and leaves my table. She states that she doesn't want the paper but will give him a dollar.

She starts to look in her purse and then states that she only has change. I cannot see the change change hands but I can hear it. It was maybe a dollars worth.

Babies and dogs and tourists are what I see.


...

I wonder why it is that when I shave her legs, it is an act of devotion but when she shaves mine, it is an act of ownership.

...

I sip from my Starbucks green ice tea.

I watch a group of three amateur photographers taking photos. I look to where they are shooting. I am not too impressed.

Testing

This is a test

Rolled pizza wheels

plain parsley

not rolled pizza wheels

oregano

tomato paste with oregano

mushrooms, pancetta, onions, peppers and other stuff

Knife and steel. The steel was my dad's. That knive is the reason I chopped everything by hand as opposed to using a food processor.

Finished wheels

Uncooked wheels

Chopped parsley

Parchment paper folded on the long edge to keep it flat which works better than trying to reverse the curve

Cooked and chopped pancetta

Red pepper

Sweet onion

Also finished pizza wheels

De-stemmed oregano because I care

Chopped oregano

Onions and mushrooms. I diced the stems finer than I did the tops of the mushrooms

Cooked pancetta

Cut pizza wheel roll

Provolone and prosciutto

mushrooms